Crickets
by sad little tiger
Summary: She grew up in a monster's shadow. She fell in love with it too.
1. Unnatural Starts and Stops

"Can I get you to look directly into the camera here —" He gestured. "State your full name, your age, your affiliation with the suspect."

She raised her eyes steadily to the red blinking light. She took a centering breath.

"My name is Sherry Anne Birkin. I'm twenty years old."

The shadow-man behind the camera waited. There was a wall of glass separating them.

"I lived with Albert Wesker. He raised me," she said.

* * *

When she was twelve, they boarded a plane and fled the United States. As she understood it then, her parents, God rest their souls, had done some bad things; they had paid for it with their lives. Albert Wesker had done some bad things as well, but he was spared their fate due to a fortunate twist in genetics. It seemed terribly unfair at the time.

It would be a year before Sherry Birkin could _really_ remember her last night in Raccoon City and the final moments with what was left of William Birkin. Night terrors, tremors, and uncontrollable panic set in shortly after she first recalled The Great Eye in her father's bulging shoulder.

In the bustling airport, Wesker stooped, dropping his carry-on bag to the ground and looking her in the eyes. He was wearing contacts and she could see the rings of his orange irises, glowing like embers. He had warned her that his vision was poor without the contacts and non-existent with them in. His pupils were no longer round, but elliptical… like a snake's, contracting and expanding in the light. He promised that he would get better, that he would be _more_ than human in the end, but he was still adjusting to his metamorphosis, after all, and he was in excruciating pain as his body went to war with itself, rearranging its very DNA to fit the virus made just for him. At least that was what he said. That was what he told himself.

She should have been afraid of the man she'd only met a handful of times in her life, perhaps even run into the crowd, never to be seen again… but she only felt very sorry for him.

"I need you to lead me… through there." He pointed, wincing in his invisible agony. "Through security. Alright? Yes?" Breathless.

She nodded, all the while thinking _he might never get better,_ and she'd be left in the care of yet another dead adult.

"I will tell them I have a migraine so that they don't look closely at my eyes… And you must call me _father_. Papa. We have to play pretend, hmm?" He straightened and slung the bag over his shoulder again, his jaw clenching. "Pretend."

He fumbled with his wallet, almost trembling. It dropped to the floor.

She knelt and picked it up, before taking his hand.

He stiffened at their first touch.

She looked up at him. "Pretend," she said. _Pretend to get better._

And he nodded.

* * *

"Do you know where Albert Wesker is now?" the man asked, flipping through a file. There was urgency in his voice, but he tried very hard to appear unbothered by busying his hands. She knew that it was an interrogation tactic.

 _You're definitely not in trouble… look how bored I am with all this. See? Terribly bored and not at all interested in any of the words coming out of your mouth and being recorded and analyzed by the federal government._

The problem was that she really didn't know anything.

"Miss Birkin? Do you know his whereabouts?" He looked up then.

She shook her head.

The man sighed behind the glass.

"I think," she said, her voice frail. "I think he's dead. He told me… if he didn't come back that he… he must be dead."

The man shook his head this time and continued to page through the manila folder. "He was seen in Berlin just last week."

Sherry looked down. Her heart was broken.

* * *

She was essentially mute until she was thirteen, and even after that, she spoke in unnatural starts and stops, the fluency of communication all but gone out of her. It was hard to hear her own voice. That was fine for him - she knew he also secretly hated his own sound. Most times, they were silent together, and spoke with nothing but gestures and eye contact.

It was also at thirteen, she realized she despised her name. Sherry wasn't short for anything - like Sheryl (as in Sheryl Crow), and it wasn't long for anything - like Cher (which would have been infinitely more impressive). He'd told her that her parents were drinking a saccharine-sweet Sherry the night she was conceived, lest she would never have come to be. She listened to his story, as she always listened to him, that is to say intently and seriously, and she knew that it was meant to seem romantic, wistful even. All she got out of the tale though was how two sad and irresponsible people accidentally had a daughter they never wanted.

It was in that year, he began to call her _Cricket_.

 _"_ _Gentle… careful," he whispered to her. "Don't hurt him."_

 _They stared into her cupped hands. A ray of light slipped between her thin fingers and illuminated the lowly little insect. She smiled at the twitching antennae that tickled her palms. She could feel Wesker's breath on the nape of her neck, and he was smiling too._

 _"_ _A cricket that sings in the house is very good luck." He led her to the balcony, where he kept his forest of potted herbs and vegetables in their apartment in Lisbon. "This one - here." He motioned._

 _She slowly opened her hands over the dark rich soil of a flowering squash plant. The cricket hesitated for a moment before springing into the foliage._

 _He watched her from the sliding door wall and the dusky twilight sky that hung over the city washed everything in pink and violet light. "It's the male that chirps," he said. "But his song attracts deadly parasites. The females are silent… and have exponentially longer lives for it."_

Most girls would have desired to be called _butterfly_ , or _firefly_ , or _little bird_.

Sherry though was happy with quiet and long-lived _Cricket._

* * *

"Did Albert Wesker share his work with you, at any point, between 2001 and 2005?"

"No," she said.

"Did he mention Tricell Pharmaceuticals?"

"No."

"Did you ever hear him speak to a woman named Excella Gionne? On the phone perhaps, or even in person?"

She shook her head. "No."

The interrogating agent leaned back in his chair, his hands folded over his round belly. "You lived with him, in his home, _all of the time_ , from 1998 to this year, correct?"

Sherry looked at him and blinked. "Yes," she said quietly.

"And he never… not even once… talked about what he did?" He glared at her, skeptically. "Took any phone calls around you? Gave you any indication at all that he might be doing something… unsavory?"

Her eyes threatened to tear up. "He said he was protecting me."

* * *

She was fourteen when she'd first thought of his body and wondered how it might feel on hers. She was surprised it hadn't occurred to her sooner. She thought obsessively of him. She dreamed of touching him. She pressed her lips to her pillow and _imagined_.

She would kiss his mouth, in her mind, and feel his tongue touch hers. And the fantasy would end there, a hazy fade-out, because sex was far too abstract a concept for her then.

That was the year she first bled.

She'd peered down into the toilet bowl, red with the first drops of menses. It was not as if she didn't know - in theory, she knew what her body was doing. He'd explained it so plainly to her, so scientifically:

 _"_ _Your uterus will slough off tissue every month, or thereabouts. It will be something like blood, but it is made up of much more than that. You may experience pain in your lower belly, in your lower back - these are contractions, similar to the contractions you will have during childbirth."_

 _She must have looked concerned._

 _"_ _The female reproductive system is complex. I… I fear I'm not doing it justice this way. Perhaps I should buy you a book about it, hmm?"_

 _She knew he did not know what else to say. She was sad for herself, being born a girl, but more so for him, being born a human._

 _Life was tragic._

He was gone the day she'd gotten her first period. She hadn't known what to do, other than put a washcloth in her underwear. She curled up on the beautiful toile couch in the parlor, and watched the squares of yellow sunlight arc from one end of the room to the other, feeling the blood that wasn't exactly blood drip out of her slowly.

He came home well after dark.

"Are you hurt? Have you injured yourself?" he asked in greeting, unhurried as he pulled off his long coat and hung it in the entryway. She was embarrassed that he could smell her. His sense of smell was preternatural after the metamorphosis - he'd told her so.

She shook her head.

"You're a woman now, then." He came to her across the shining marble floors, unbuttoning his cufflinks. He stared down at her and brushed a lock of her white-blonde hair out of her face. "Are you in pain?"

She held up her thumb and forefinger, pinched nearly together - _a little_.

"Have you taken anything for it?"

Another shake of her head.

"Oh Cricket…," he sighed. "We've got to take better care of ourselves, don't we?"

He used the word _we_ whenever he was chastising her. _We've got to eat healthier than that. We've got work on taking responsibility for our actions. We've got to improve if we want to be anything at all in life._ She imagined it made him feel better, the _we_ in his directives.

He disappeared into the bathroom. She heard the medicine cabinet open and close. The faucet ran. "What are you using?"

She pushed herself up and stared at the soft light flooding the hallway. She saw his shadow move, heard the rattle of pills in a plastic bottle. "What do you mean?" she asked weakly.

"For the blood. What are you using?" He emerged, a cup of water in one hand, a few Advil in the other. He offered it to her.

She took one capsule at a time, as she found it difficult to swallow pills, even after all the years of immunosuppressant therapy. He waited patiently for her to finish the water. She felt like a child, always like a child. "A washcloth," she finally replied, wiping her mouth.

He walked to the kitchen and set the cup in the deep sink. "I'm sorry," he said, after a long moment, his back to her. "I'll ring up concierge. They'll bring something for you… right now."

He made her his sister's favorite chicken and rice for dinner that night, instead of ordering out. He added an entire head of fresh garlic. They loved garlic, together.

He only made chicken and rice when he felt guilty.

* * *

After three hours of questioning, they shut down their camera and let her rest. She laid her head on the tabletop next to the styrofoam cup of stale coffee… and she cried. She didn't sob, her shoulders didn't shake. Instead, silent, exhausted tears dripped steadily down her cheeks. The stainless steel was so cool on her face… she just wanted to sleep.

There was a knock on the glass. She turned her head without lifting it.

Chris Redfield stood on the other side. He stared at her with apologetic eyes, his hand on the partition that separated them. She sat up, sniffing back her tears and the mucus that dripped down her throat, not bothering to wipe her wet face.

"Hey kid," he said, his voice muffled. "You're doin' good. Hang in there. Not much longer, okay?"

She nodded and balled up the kleenex in her hands.

* * *

Wesker sent for a stylist, every season, without fail. Spring, summer, fall, and winter. A woman or a man, sometimes a small team, would sweep into wherever they were - in Vienna, or Paris, or Hamburg, or Madrid - with a rack or an armful of the most beautiful clothing in the world at that very _finite_ moment. They would fuss and groom and display her like a little doll, in front of one mirror, two mirrors, three mirrors, all under his approving gaze. Pastels and metallics and muteds and mattes - every color and shade and hue.

But not black. Never black.

After an hour of climbing in and out of fancy, irritating garments, she came before him in a lovely modest dress, by a designer who's name she'd forgotten immediately, but whom she was told was going to be a star. It was sunny and yellow, tea-length and full.

He sat, legs crossed, on a leather ottoman, his hands folded over his knee. His lacquered wingtip drew a lazy circle in the air. He was thoughtful as he studied her on the pedestal.

A music box princess.

"Do you like it?" he asked, his first question of the night.

She shrugged, not bothering to glance at her own reflection in the tri-fold mirrors the dresser had set up.

The stylist smiled nervously. She stood off to the side, her elegant hands wringing. "She's quite… discerning, your daughter. I um… I've brought more - perhaps she'd prefer something less formal, and I have —"

"We'll take it all," he said, dismissive.

The woman stammered, something about _didn't he want to see the rest_ , _didn't she want to try it on_ , but he was already writing out a large cheque in his fine, narrow script.

"It's not as if she'll wear anything but that ratty t-shirt anyway," he lamented, glancing disdainfully in her direction as he handed over the payment.

Sherry saw that he was smirking underneath though, and so she smirked too.

* * *

A nurse in a HAZMAT suit came into the interrogation room.

"Hey sweetheart," she said in a Southern drawl. "We just need a few vials. We're gonna run ya for any pathogens and then we can stop wearin' these dumb tents."

Sherry stared at her forlornly, rolled her sweatshirt sleeve up, and offered her arm.

"Thank you, honey… won't take but a minute." She tied Sherry's bicep off with an occlusion band. "Make a fist for me, darlin'." Sherry looked away when the nurse swabbed her vein with an alcohol pad. "Gonna pinch a bit going in, okay?"

Sherry sighed. She heard her blood, rushing out in a steady, narrow stream, hitting the sides of the glass vial.

The nurse reached over and popped the cap off another container. "My goodness if you aren't an easy bleeder…" she said. "You feelin' light-headed? You doin' good?"

"I'm fine," Sherry said.

After replacing the vial six times, she loosened the band around Sherry's arm and told her to relax her hand.

"Gonna sting when I pull the needle out, baby," the nurse warned her in a kind voice.

Sherry couldn't feel anything anymore.

"Alright… okay. Just hold this here, sweetie —" She pressed a rolled up gauze pad to the inside of Sherry's elbow. "You might leak a little… I gotcha pretty good. Might bruise too, just be careful with that arm."

"It's fine," Sherry said. She pulled the gauze off.

The nurse started, telling her to wait… but then she watched Sherry's pale arm.

The angry red prick where the needle had been healed over before their eyes.

The nurse could only stare at her.

* * *

One morning, in early July, just before she turned fifteen, a pretty woman she didn't know walked across the hall from the master bedroom to the bathroom. She was wearing a robe - _his_ robe - wrapping it tightly around herself. And then the door closed.

Sherry had frozen where she stood, a mug of coffee in her hands. She'd almost dropped it.

He had been discrete enough, she supposed. But her newly-opened heart didn't care about his discretion, and she went back to her room, weeping.

She could recall the look on his face perfectly. He was so stoic and removed from everything around him, but as he sat there on the edge of her bed, he looked at her with a tenderness that she never dared to hope for.

"What's the matter? Why are you crying?" he asked. He reached for the blanket, pulled over her head protectively. She shied away from him. "Tell me," he said softly. His pupils expanded until his golden irises were nearly eclipsed. "Tell me and I'll destroy it."

She stared at him over her shoulder, her eyes bleary and red in her throbbing face.

And when she could not tell him, he took her hand, though she resisted. He put her palm to his chest, just over his heart, and he frowned beautifully.

They remained like that, a statue of themselves.

There were things she wanted desperately to say, even then, at fifteen. Inappropriate things, wild things, animal things. But she did not find the words until much later on. Still, the emotion of those unutterable things echoed in her head without any way to escape for years and years:

 _We belong. You are mine, and I am yours. Eternal._

* * *

"While we wait on that blood work… I'm going to ask you a few more questions, alright?"

 _As if she had a choice. As if she could refuse._ Sherry stared at the agent, on the other side of the glass… again.

"Did Albert Wesker perform any experiments on you… that you know of?"

"No."

"You're sure?"

"Yes."

"Did he talk about a doomsday virus?"

"No. _No._ He didn't talk about any viruses. At all. Ever." She dared to raised her voice.

The man watched her dispassionately, like he was watching a film in a language he didn't know. He waited a moment, and then: "You're sure?"

Sherry hid her face in her hands. "Yes."

* * *

During an unseasonably warm September in her sixteenth year, they stayed with a friend of Wesker's in Lourmarin - a little village cradled by the Luberon mountain range in the south of France. It was an achingly romantic place. Ancient cemeteries, cobblestone streets, lazy cafes, and the beautiful hard French sun. Everything was dry and cracked, in a lovely way, and all of the fences were covered in centuries-old grape vines and the houses were green with waxy-looking ivy. The trip made her feel nostalgic for things she'd never experienced.

One of them, perhaps, _first love_.

For a week and a day, she hadn't done anything but eat cured meats and unpasteurized cheeses, and sit around the clear pool in the courtyard, listening to the song birds call. Wesker had spent his time on intense and loud conference calls with his associate, breaking just once a day to join Sherry for dinner. When he was with her, and her alone, he would slump into the stately wingback chair and quickly fall into a fitful sleep. She was the only one who was allowed to know how exhausted he was.

One slow afternoon, she pulled a chaise lounge to the water's edge and laid on her stomach in the hot sun, the straps of her bikini top undone, the tight bottoms tugged up so that most of her buttocks was exposed to tan. The breeze rustled the yew and juniper trees around the property. She pressed her cheek to the warm canvas of the lounge and closed her eyes.

Somewhere, she heard a door open and shut quietly. There was a rustle, something soft being dropped to a chair nearby. She cracked an eye and saw pale bare feet crossing the mosaic edge of the pool. The long muscles in his hairless calves flexed with each measured, silent step. He moved like a cat even in his leisure time.

She folded her hands under her cheek and watched him climb the stairs to the low diving board.

He was wearing a black Speedo, and the sight of it would have shocked her had she not grown accustomed to his showmanship. Her eyes travelled up his thighs - hairless and lean-muscled like his calves - to the tightly curtailed bulge between them. She wondered, briefly, how he walked with that, every day, constantly. She suppressed a smile.

His hips, like the rest of his frame, were narrow, almost delicate, and the deep v-cut of his lower belly drew the curious eye up to a washboard of defined abdominals. His chest was as smooth and bare as the rest of him, and his collar bone was shaped so finely that it looked like the curve of a violin. He was all at once hyper-masculine and androgynous; like a chameleon, he knew how to appeal to everyone's personal taste.

With perfect form, he launched off the diving board, his lithe body slipping like a knife into the water, barely disturbing the surface of the crystalline pool. She very nearly sighed.

He emerged at the other end of the pool, his hair, almost white, plastered to his head and face. He pushed it back from his eyes and then began swimming relaxed laps, kicking off the blue-tiled walls, languid and calm. She counted forty of them before she stopped, closed her eyes again, and just listened to him glide through his exercises. Hissing cicadas shook off their skins in the trees and the groundskeeper's dog barked twice. Everything was warm, everything was perfect. She dozed, her senses dulled pleasurably.

After nearly half of an hour, he climbed up onto the sun deck and reclined in the shallow water on his elbows, flicking the surface lazily with his fingertips, watching the ripples sent across the pool. He let his head fall back and the sun painted his throat and his shoulders and his chest gold with it's afternoon light.

She took careful sneaking glances at him, and then hid her desirous gaze in the crook of her arms. He was so still that he looked as if he was carved from stone. She hoped that he was observing her as well, but then she chastised herself for the naive thought.

 _He would never. Dumb girl. Stupid girl. Little girl._

Some time passed in the midday heat and she came close to falling asleep. It wasn't until she felt his hands on her that she realized he was close.

His fingers were wet, and his hair dripped cool water on her naked back. A fat drop rolled down the space between her shoulders, settling in the the arch of her lower back. She felt time freeze; all the blood in her body seemed to stop in her paralyzed veins. She stared, her eyes suddenly open and unblinking, over the head rest of the chair and she held her breath until it _hurt_.

So softly it felt like a whisper against her ribs, he lifted the untied straps of her bikini. She felt him cross and tighten the strings, the loose knot pressed into her spine with a single finger. She took a deep breath as he casually tied a bow. She licked her lips, her throat on fire.

His slow, thoughtful fingers trailed down her back, not quite touching her over-heated skin; her stomach muscles jerked and jumped at the sensation. She was electric.

He found the hem of her bikini bottoms and gently worked his fingertips underneath, hooking them and pulling the material out.

Her vision tunneled. For a moment in time… she imagined he might urge her with his touch to lift her anxious, desperate hips and slide the bottoms off, down her long legs. _And she would let him… she would let him have whatever he wanted._

He tugged on the spandex so that it lay as intended on the small curve of her buttocks.

And then his hands were gone, and the little wet fingerprints he'd placed on her were drying - so fast, too fast - in the French sun.

"Don't be in such a hurry, Cricket," he said quietly.

He picked up his towel and padded into the house, wrapping it around his waist.

* * *

Seventeen was the year when she came to test him in earnest.

She decided to be an artist early on in life, or rather the decision was made for her by her talent. From the time she could hold a pencil, it was a compulsion - _get the images out of her head and onto a page_. She drew and drew and drew. A constant cycle of new beginnings and creation.

After the events of Raccoon City, the urge only grew stronger. It was as if she balanced the loss of language with her artistic abilities. She drew everywhere, filling notebooks and blank spaces on textbook pages and the margins of his lab print-outs, the ones with perforated edges from outdated-looking computers. She left her mark on _everything_. Her parents had largely ignored her skills; they smiled politely when she brought home another art project, were alarmed when she achieved A's in art class, but very nearly failed Science. They couldn't comprehend a child of their own… with no interest in mathematics, no innate sense of biology.

But Albert Wesker watched her for the better part of a year, and he _understood_.

She began taking formal art lessons at thirteen. Several times a week, in whatever place they were staying, he found her a teacher. There was Mr. Zhou in Hong Kong, who specialized in three-quarter portraiture; there was Mrs. Canterbury in London, who taught her how to apply acrylic paint to canvas with a knife, in the way of the old masters; there was Mr. Ray in Jamaica who taught her how to use watercolor to capture the ocean and the sky, when they took vacations there every year.

By the time she was seventeen, she was accomplished in almost every type of traditional art, and some digital. She could paint very well with any medium, draw beautifully with pastel, pencil, or ink, throw truly impressive pottery, and somewhat capably sculpt out of clay or whittle wood. Her hands were almost always dirty, and she left her tapered fingerprints on anything she touched, it seemed. There were art supplies littering every apartment, every villa, every lavish hotel room - open tubes of bright colored paint, ripped up pages of failures, Prisma colored pencils, some sharpened, others broken.

Wesker diligently cleaned up after her late every night and he never said a cross word about it.

That spring, Mr. Holbein, her old sketching teacher in Germany, brought a young man with him to her Thursday morning lesson. She and Wesker greeted the pair at the door. Her face flushed marvelously pink when she saw the boy - just a bit older than her. He smiled, rakish, and kept running his hands through his dark curly hair. His cheeks were red with flirtatious embarrassment, like her own.

Wesker looked flustered - it was the first time she had ever seen him visibly shaken by anything, ever. "Who's this?" he blurted out. Sherry immediately lowered her eyes, hoping he hadn't noticed her acknowledging the boy. She feared it was too late for that though.

"This is my assistant, Niklas," Mr. Holbein explained, leaning on his lion's head cane. "He's going to be Miss Birkin's subject today. Anatomy." The old man smiled warmly.

Wesker did not return his smile. "I would… I would prefer that you not bring anyone to the apartment whom I haven't personally vetted, Mr. Holbein." She knew he was watching his tone, his word choice in front of her.

"Just this once then, yes?" the old man asked, unfazed, turning to the boy. "We'll make it count."

Sherry followed the two of them to the sun room, where the early light was best, and where the potted garden grew unchecked and wild. She quietly closed the glass doors behind her.

On the other side, Wesker stared at her, his arms crossed over his chest and his mouth set in that unreadable line.

* * *

She stood in the parlor and watched him that evening as he sat in his office with the door open. He was clicking a mouse furiously and glaring at one of his many oversized monitors. He punctuated his nightly ritual with the occasional sigh, or paused his incessant clicking to rub the back of his neck. He hadn't asked his usual questions that day, after her lesson. He hadn't asked to see what she'd produced, or tried to get her to explain what she'd learned. Her heart thundered in her chest as she debated with herself.

 _To show him, or not to show him._

Boldness ultimately won out and she approached the office, knocking quietly on the doorframe.

He took a deep breath, as if he'd forgotten she was home, and turned to her in the huge leather rolling chair. His reading glasses, useless things really, were halfway down the bridge of his nose, and he looked over the top of the frames at her. "Cricket," he said softly. "Come in."

She went to him then and crouching beside him, spread out the sketches she'd done that morning on his heavy cherry wood desk. He pushed the narrow glasses up so that he could see through them.

The first sketch was of the young man in shotput motion, his hand drawn back and torso twisted. It was a lively sketch in charcoal, all great swooping lines and action. It was also, in her opinion, very sloppy. But Mr. Holbein had liked it best, citing that she'd used her entire arm to capture the boy, rather than micromanaging with only her fingers.

In the second sketch, the model was reclining, one knee up. She was particularly proud of the feet. She pointed to them, and Wesker nodded in agreement. "Yes," he said. "Very real."

The third sketch was the boy dressing - doubled over, pulling on a pair of loose jeans. It was her favorite of the lot; she loved the folds of the denim, the tension in his thighs, the way it seemed so true to life. She tapped the corner of the drawing, to indicate that it was her best. Loose charcoal dusted curled up into the air between them.

The young man had been nude. Wesker hadn't mentioned it, but she'd seen his eyes flicker to the genitals, and his jaw tense.

He looked up at his computer screens, turning his face from her suddenly, as if something had come to his attention. He took off his glasses and set them on the desk top.

"Would you be… terribly upset with me if I told you I canceled any further lessons with Mr. Holbein?" he asked.

She studied his profile. Her blood throbbed in her ears, in her lips - making her feel very hot, almost painfully so. She reminded herself to breathe and shook her head. _No, I don't care. I don't care about any of it but you._

"These are beautiful," he said, after a moment. "Stunning."

 _I want to draw you like this_ , she wished to say. But she did not.

* * *

When the agent came back, he didn't sit on the other side of the glass wall. He strode into the room, without the HAZMAT suit. He tapped the spine of the same manila folder against his palm. Sherry sat back in the awful plastic chair; her hands smoothed out the crumpled kleenex over her bouncing thigh. The news must have been good - they might let her be for the night.

"Your labs came back… Aside from remnants of the G Virus, nothing remarkable in your panel." He laid the report in front her.

She looked down at the papers; she couldn't read any of it. It was all a jumble of lines and acronyms and numbers drawn-out to the millionths place. Her blood levels, she assumed. She swallowed, trying to do what the agent wanted her to do - look over things she didn't understand and nod as if she did. She touched the top page, praying for him to say something, or for the information to somehow absorb through her skin.

"Did… Albert Wesker ever say anything to you about your parents?" he asked slowly.

She glanced up. "Yeah."

"He talk about your dad?"

Her stomach lurched. Something was wrong. "Yes," she replied, breathlessly, confused.

The agent took a seat in the folding chair across from her. He rubbed his face. "William Birkin, correct?"

She sank away from the table. "Yes." Barely a whisper.

"Hmm." He closed the folder in front of her. "Well… everything checks out, Miss Birkin. You are who say you are. The B.S.A.A. will be working in tandem with the federal government from this point on. You'll be placed in protective custody for the time being. We made arrangements for your quarters tonight and Chris Redfield will be the lead agent. If you need anything at all, consult with him, yeah?"

She nodded. She wanted to ask: _What about my father?_ But she was too afraid.

In the other room, Chris watched.

* * *

 **Author's Note:** Thanks to ironbutterfly25 for the menstruation scene.


	2. King of Swords

"We're taking you to a safe house tonight," Chris Redfield said. He turned so that she could see his face in the cabin lights of the car that smelled like old leather and Pinesol. "We're gonna see about getting you out of the country tomorrow. Could be on plane headed back to the States by this time. That would be nice, yeah?"

He was sitting in the front passenger seat; his partner was driving. Sherry watched her. She had dark hair, pulled back in a neat pony tail, hidden under a ball cap. She was a pretty woman, but unconventionally so. Large, wide blue eyes that were neither warm nor cold, and a nose that had been broken several times. She'd introduced herself, and her name had been the only thing that she'd said for over half an hour. _Jill Valentine_. Her name was Jill Valentine, and she drove just above the posted speed limit in the suburbs of Paris.

He clicked the overhead light button and the car went dark. The windshield wipers thumped in the spring rain.

"You want something to eat?" he asked Sherry.

"We can't stop," Jill Valentine said. She flipped the turn signal. "You can call it in. Parker is on until midnight. He can bring something."

"Come on… the girl's been interrogated all day."

"Nope." She glanced In the rear view mirror to be sure the assisting B.S.A.A. agents were still behind them. Jill Valentine's tone told Sherry that she was afraid, that she believed Chris should be afraid too, that perhaps they should _all_ be very, very afraid.

He sighed and ran his hands through his hair. "Sorry, kid," he said.

* * *

"I have a surprise for you," Wesker said in a teasing voice on the eve of her eighteenth birthday.

At seven that night, the guard in the lobby called the apartment. She listened - he told the doorman in German to let whoever it was through. He tossed her the cell phone and went to the grand entryway. She sat up and leaned over the back of the couch, her curiosity piqued. He waited there, smiling broadly, his hand on the door knob, the locks already undone in preparation for whatever would be on the other side.

They waited forever, it seemed. Her heart beat hard and fast in her chest.

Finally… three hollow raps on the heavy door.

He looked slyly at her, and then opened it.

Her godmother, Alex Wesker, in immaculate white, stood on the other side, grinning like the Cheshire cat.

Sherry couldn't help but gasp.

Alex arched a perfect eyebrow and spread her arms for her brother.

They stepped cautiously towards each other and embraced in the doorway. They fit together in slow motion, two pieces of the same mysterious puzzle, and they stood in that place, cradling one another, for a long moment. They possessed the same lean body, the same golden crown. Sherry watched Alex bury her face in his shoulder, her fingers spreading out over his back.

When she withdrew and stepped away from him, she looked directly at Sherry.

Their gazes met. Alex's hand came to cover her own mouth, and tears welled up in her eyes.

* * *

"Why don't you show me this gorgeous place of yours?" Alex asked, turning herself in a circle, a glass of red wine already in hand. She laughed at the enormity, the obscenity. "Good God! These ceilings!"

Sherry looked at Wesker. He was assembling ingredients on a bamboo cutting board, slicing the long green top off a big pink and white radish. He glanced up and nodded in the direction of his sister. "Give her the grand tour now or we'll be listening to _that_ all night," he said, half a smile on his lips.

But she didn't want to show Alex around - she wanted to watch _him_. She always watched him when he made dinner. She loved his capable hands, loved how his pale fingers delicately peeled and carved and ladled and arranged. Her thoughts turned dark - Alex's clever eyes would see. Alex would figure out the love that she had for him. She would know the _unnaturalness_ of it.

The thought of discovery terrified Sherry.

"Oh come on… Let's go have a girl talk. He'll be fine by himself - trust me," Alex smiled conspiratorially, taking a sip of her wine. She blinked her enormous violet eyes at Sherry over the rim of the glass. "The only thing he's better at than cooking is being an complete _ass_."

"Quickly, Miss Birkin… my _darling_ … before I poison our guest," he said and stabbed a little paring knife into the cutting board so that it stood on end, quivering.

Alex said something to him in Russian - something that must have been clever or disarming, and brother and sister beamed at each other affectionately. She took Sherry's hand in her own and led her down the hall to the suites, raving the whole way about the crown moulding.

* * *

"I wouldn't leave that bathroom. The tub! I can't _believe_ that tub! Divine!" Alex laughed. She moved the glass of wine from hand to the other, jangling the thin gold bracelets on each of her wrists. Her fingernails were painted a deep garnet and they glittered in the warm light of the villa. Sherry watched her graceful hands move - animated and smooth as she babbled away - and wondered if they were a distinctly Wesker trait.

"Is this your room? May I?" Alex asked, flipping her perfectly curled hair over her shoulder.

Sherry gestured. _Go on._

Alex balanced the wine in one hand and felt the wall for the light switch, just inside the tall doorway.

"I hope you straightened up in there," came Wesker's doubtful voice from the kitchen.

Sherry and Alex rolled their eyes at the same time.

She flicked the switch, once she found it, and the room was flooded with the same flattering light as the rest of the flat. A large fan set into the tray ceiling spun slowly around; its blades shaped like great leaves. Alex walked to the center of the room, surveying it. She nodded to herself and took a gulp of the wine.

Sherry's bed jutted out from the farthest corner, on an angle. It was supposed to be a fantastical four-post canopy piece, but she hadn't gotten around to hanging the drapery and so it was dressed in humble white sheets and a goose-down comforter. There was a bookshelf too, populated with a few of her textbooks and an odd art piece, and was pushed to the adjoining wall. Sherry's lighted desk was in another corner, close to the enormous bay windows.

"Well, you're both certainly sticking to the um…" Alex waved her hand. "Modern look. It's very modern. Abstract even… in it's sparseness. Yes. It's abstract."

She looked around again and spotted Sherry's walk-in closet. Her eyes lit up and set her glass down on the art desk. The red wine sloshed dangerously close to a large sketchpad; Sherry had to stop herself from cringing.

"Oh, you have to let me see your wardrobe… you _must_ ," Alex demanded.

* * *

She stood in Sherry's closet, the toe of her red platform tapping. She browsed through what seemed a million blouses and and sweaters and cardigans, commenting on each. Alex pushed another hanger down the rod; she held out a sun dress to inspect its full length. It was a jewel-tone blue, as deep as midnight. She hummed to herself, running her hand down the front of it reverently. Sherry climbed up onto her tall royal bed and sat cross-legged.

"You picked this out?" Alex asked.

Sherry shook her head, tearing at her already painful nails.

"Ah." Alex nodded, returning to the dress. "He always did have such exquisite taste in clothes…" She trailed off, parting another row and studying a hand-sequined tank top. "He must love seeing you in all this. His sweet little doll."

Sherry looked down, thinking for the first time that perhaps she disappointed him with her plain style, her average looks. She hid her body away with big t-shirts and baggy jeans when he clearly wanted her to be as well-groomed as he was. She felt a daughter's guilt, for squandering all the gifts he'd given… and a lover's shame, for failing to attract him.

"My friends would come over, when we were young…" Alex inspected a blouse with scalloped sleeves. "And if he was home, it was like I didn't exist." She sighed. " _Where's your brother? I want to show him what I'm wear-ing_ ," she said in a nasal, mocking tone.

She emerged from the closet, smirking like Wesker himself, and joined Sherry on the bed. They were quiet together for a moment.

"How long has it been since I've seen you? Ten years?" Alex asked.

"Six," she replied in her cricket's voice.

Alex sighed. "Six years… You were so small and scared then. How time flies." She reached up and took a section of Sherry's long blonde hair in her hands. She absently combed through the thick waves with her fingers. "Look at all this hair," she said. "As light as theirs… lighter, maybe. Lovely."

"Thank you," Sherry whispered. She swallowed, made nervous by the attention.

Alex separated her hair into three sections and gently pulled them taut until they looked like three cords of shining gold rope under the warm light. She began to lazily braid. "Do you have a boyfriend? Tell me - is he an absolute angel, just like you?" Alex asked.

"No," she said.

"A girlfriend then? I've _always_ preferred girls myself," Alex smiled, leaning close and nudging Sherry's shoulder. "They're so soft and beautiful and willing… and they taste like heaven."

"No," Sherry smiled too, blushing. "I don't have a girlfriend either."

Alex frowned while her fingers continued to braid. "No one? My poor Sherry… Does he allow you to date? Is that it? He won't let you?"

Sherry took a breath and held it, thinking. "I've never tried. I don't know… what he'd say."

In all actuality, she knew _exactly_ what he would say, but it didn't matter. She would never so much as think of another man as long as he lived.

"Well, he _should_ let you date… You ought to be out with people your own age." Alex said, braiding more quickly as she came near to the ends of the hair. "You shouldn't be cloistered away with a stodgy old man like my brother." She finished her work and rested her chin on Sherry's shoulder. "Even if he thinks he's still really _cool_."

Sherry nodded because she wasn't sure what else to do, and looked at the flaxen braid that Alex laid over her chest.

"A little bird told me that you're a real artist now." Alex hopped off the bed. She walked over to the desk in front of the windows and picked up her wine. She took a deep sip and then licked her cherry lips. "Show me. Show me _everything_." And her eyes sparkled.

* * *

She paged slowly through the portfolio, letting each different-sized sheet, or canvas, or watercolor paper fall from her fingers into a careful pile. She would stop on occasion and drink, or make an admiring sound. Sherry knelt near her and watched, with her nervous little hands in her lap.

Alex stopped on a portrait of Wesker in profile. Sherry recalled the day, and the reason she had chosen to capture him that moment. He had been looking through his phone, both thumbs busy with the keyboard and the scrolling ball. He had been frowning and then laughed suddenly, loudly, until his eyes teared up. He had been so joyous.

"You study him often," Alex finally said as she reluctantly set the portrait on the pile with the rest of her work. Her voice was flat.

Sherry's heart pounded; her racing pulse throbbed in her temples.

"I suppose he's easy enough to draw… with all those sharp angles. What do you call him?" She asked smoothly.

Sherry stuttered. "I… I'm sorry?"

"What do you call my brother? Albert? Dr. Wesker?" She laid another picture down. "Or do you call him _Dad_ , just to make things simple?"

Her breath hitched. "I don't know… I don't… I don't call him anything."

"Hmm." Alex regarded her thoughtfully. "I used to call him _Albie_. It drove him crazy." She grinned.

Sherry giggled, unsure. Tension knotted in her lower back.

Alex stroked the next piece of Sherry's work. "And who is this?"

"A model. From here, from Germany." Sherry looked over Alex's shoulder.

"Oh… what a _cock_ ," Alex hissed, nearly choking when her eyes found his groin. She wiped her mouth with the back of her hand.

Sherry smiled - a big, open-mouthed guffaw. "He hates these," she whispered, glancing up at the open door.

"I bet he does." Alex lifted the picture high in the light. "The boy is _huge_. Are you sure this is to scale?"

Sherry laughed and covered her face with her hands. "Yes," she said sheepishly.

"You weren't exaggerating for dramatic effect, were you?"

Sherry looked at her, wide-eyed. "I _swear_."

Alex shook her head in wonder. "Jesus." She held up her mostly empty second glass of wine, as if to toast. "I've decided… that _this_ should be your boyfriend, Sherry. Cheers, and good luck."

They leaned into each other, laughing.

"So much fun being had without me," Wesker said. He stood in the doorway, wrapping a dish towel around his hand.

"Brother dearest, just in time! Miss Birkin was showing me her _art_ _collection_." Alex quoted in the air. "She said this is your favorite." She smiled and flipped the sketch so he could see. Sherry snorted.

"Christ," he groaned, turning away from them. He snapped the towel and then hung it over his shoulder. "Dinner is ready. Not that either of you deserve it."

* * *

Sherry dragged the rolling suitcase up the narrow staircase of the safe house, and to the middle of the tiny room they'd assigned her. She laid the suitcase down, facing up, and unzipped it, stopping to gather her hair. With one hand, she held the messy bun in place on the back of her head, and pulled the rubber band off her wrist with her teeth. She wrapped the tie around the bun twice and tucked the stray ends under. She sighed and rummaged through the clothes she'd been allowed to bring.

Chris Redfield knocked softly on the door frame. She stopped, a pair of flannel pants balled up in her hands, but she did not turn to him.

"Hey… I'm sorry to… There's um, Chinese downstairs. If you're hungry. You've gotta be… starving."

She listened and waited.

He stepped across the threshold into her room, and she could feel his weight on the creaking floor boards of the old French farmhouse. He didn't stand behind her, but someplace off to her left, mindful of the space between them, aware of his own presence and violation it might be to her.

"If there's anything that you… felt like you couldn't tell Agent Flannegan, I'll be here with you… every step of the way," he said softly.

"I don't know where he is," she replied, surprising even herself with her terse manner. She looked at him then, and met his eyes fiercely.

He stood against the louver doors of the closet, his obscenely-muscled arms crossed over his broad chest. "I know. I know you don't know where he is. I just thought… I thought maybe you might need someone to talk to. I believe you."

She looked down and uncrumpled the pants in her hands. She folded them and smoothed the material down almost meditatively.

"He used to do that."

Sherry frowned, not understanding.

"He used to do that to fabric. Always. Couldn't stand a wrinkle." He dropped his arms and opened himself to her, perhaps consciously. She studied him.

"You care if I…" he asked, gesturing the bed. She shook her head and he sat carefully on the edge of the mattress.

She went back to organizing her clothes. She piled a few t-shirts off the side of the suitcase on the floor. "Who are you to him?" she asked without looking up.

He took a thoughtful breath before speaking. She decided she liked that - how he _thought_ before he spoke. "I worked with him. Years ago. He was my captain… in Raccoon City."

She nodded.

"When we… came to get you —"

Her teeth ground, recalling how she'd been forced to her knees, weeping as what seemed the barrels of a thousand rifles were aimed at her… The yelling, the chaos, the helicopters over their villa. She blinked, and memory of the day before was gone. All that was left was Chris Redfield, sitting on a bed that wasn't hers, in a stranger's safe house, at the end of a dark and winding road in the French countryside. He looked at her with watery blue eyes. _Kind_ blue eyes.

"We found the letter, on the desk. With my name, and my contact information," he said, watching her. "Why would he… why me?"

Sherry looked very hard at him. "He said you were the only person he could trust."

* * *

He'd made her favorites, in honor of her special day. His piquant shaved celery and radish salad, followed by his rustic _penne alla vodka_ with hand-crushed tomatoes, finished off with a chocolate cake he'd ordered from a bakery they frequented. He'd grumbled at her choices; _A meal should have an order, Cricket, it should make sense, and these dishes have no business being on the same table._ But she had held her ground, and he gave in, as he was wont to do with her, always.

Wesker and Alex made coded small talk over dinner, and she watched Sherry the entire time; it seemed that nothing escaped her scrutinizing eyes. Sherry, for her own part, remained completely silent.

The conversation between them slowed, coming almost to a stop. Alex bit a piece of penne in half. She'd turned her laser-like attention on Wesker then as he used a knife to move some of the pickled salad onto a fork. Alex's cruel eyes were half-lidded and she chewed slowly.

Sherry fidgeted with a cloth napkin under the table.

"Angel?" Alex asked suddenly. "You'll tell me the truth, won't you?" She paused. "Is my brother in love with someone?"

Wesker sighed, his nostrils flaring, and crunched a mouthful of celery. He pushed back from the table and regarded Alex with a fatigued expression.

Sherry's stomach somersaulted. She thought of the beautiful woman, nearly three years before, crossing from his room to the bath, the sickening smell of her perfume and the sickening smell of something else, something dark. She thought of the nights he spent out, coming back in the early hours of morning, perhaps not daring to bring another woman home as she got older. She was seized with the nausea of panic.

Alex leaned back, crossing her arms. Her lips, somehow still impossibly glossy and red even after eating an entire meal, turned up in the corners, settling in an almost-smile for him. "Don't look at me like that. It's just a feeling… a hunch," she said, teasing. She peeked at Sherry, who was shrunken and small in her chair. "You know, I haven't seen him this content in decades. He seems… like a man in love, doesn't he?"

Sherry sat very still.

Wesker stood, dragging in a deep, tired breath. He took a sip of his water, a few half-melted ice cubes slipping into his mouth. "If there was someone, you would know," he said with a certitude that felt like punctuation. An ice cube shattered loudly between his white teeth. "You'll excuse me for a moment."

Sherry didn't know whether to be relieved or heartbroken.

They watched as he went to the kitchen.

"My God, if you don't look just like your mother and father," Alex said as soon as he was busy in the cupboards.

Sherry jumped in her seat when Wesker forcefully dropped a plate to the marble countertop. Alex looked up at him, unmoved.

They stared at each other for a long, discomforting moment before Sherry intervened.

"It's alright." She cleared her throat. "I know they're dead. It's okay."

He hung his head and braced himself on the bar that separated the dining room from the kitchen.

Alex gazed at Sherry sadly. "I was close to your mother. I miss her very much. Not a day goes by that I don't think about her… that _we_ don't think about her," she said, gesturing to Wesker. He returned to the table with an armful of plates and he set one in front of each of them.

" _Sister_ ," he warned in a barely restrained voice. "Let's all try our best to look to the future, especially on Sherry's day." He raised a knowing eyebrow as he sat down and scooted his chair closer to the table.

"Of course. The future. So what _did_ you get for your birthday?" Alex asked, and took a bite of her cake. She scraped her teeth down the tines of the fork, her eyes rolling back dramatically at the decadence of the frosting. "Mmm."

Sherry glanced up at Wesker. His fingers trailed up and down the sweating stem of his wine glass. He nodded.

She held out her hand so that Alex could see the silver ring on her middle finger. A snake, with ruby eyes, eating it's own tail so that it made a perfect circle.

"Uroboros," Alex said, squinting at the ring as she turned Sherry's hand this way and that. "A beautiful gift for a beautiful girl. And now… my present."

Sherry shook her head - _you shouldn't have_ \- but Alex was already unsnapping her clutch.

She set a velvet drawstring purse on the table, in the middle of the chaos of plates.

"Oh, Alex…," Wesker scolded quietly. "Still channeling Aleister Crowley, are we?"

She ignored him and folded her arms so that her elbows rested on the table. She looked deeply and seriously into Sherry's eyes. "Would you like a glimpse into that future of yours?"

* * *

She instructed Sherry to shuffle the cards and then cut the deck several times. "Think very hard on a pressing question you have, angel, but do not say it out loud," she said, tapping her nails on the wooden arm of the dining chair. And so Sherry did:

 _Is it me he loves?_

Alex took the Tarot cards back and split the deck into three even piles. She pointed to the first. "The past." Then to the middle. "The present." And finally, to the third. "The future."

She turned the top card from the the pile of The Past and laid it carefully on the gleaming table top. Sherry tilted her head to better see. A burning tower, people falling from its windows, crying. Sherry frowned and looked to Alex.

"Don't be surprised, my love," she said. "It's exactly what it seems - a disaster, death, chaos. We all know what happened." She paused. "Would you like me to continue with this… or are you satisfied with the past?"

"It's the past," Sherry said softly. "It's done."

Alex turned down a card from The Present. A disembodied hand holding an overflowing chalice, and a downward-facing dove. "The Ace of Cups."

Wesker sat forward and watched closely, his pupils contracting to slits under the moody lighting of the crystal chandelier.

"This is a welcome card. It tells me that… you are existing in a period of calmness right now, and that you feel… supported, loved, cherished. This is a time of opening your heart. You are safe." She reached for the deck again. "Would you like to know more?"

Sherry nodded.

She flipped another card for The Present. It was an expressionless, regal man on a throne, holding a broad sword. "Hmm." She stared at the card, her lips pursing. "The King of Swords. An interesting card. There's an established male presence." From under her furrowed brow, she cast a dark glance at Wesker. "He will be ruled by intellect. He will be wise and he will give you excellent counsel. But —" She paused. "In affairs of the heart… he will be useless to you."

Wesker cradled his chin in his palm, his long fingers thrumming against his cheek.

"Another?" Alex asked her.

"No," Sherry said, and her heart beat just a little faster.

"Onto The Future then." Alex pulled the first card from the final pile. The image was upside down; an old man with a long gray beard, holding out a lantern. Alex blinked at the card, and without asking Sherry, pulled another. _The Lovers_. And then the _The Knight of Swords_.

Finally: _The Empress_.

Alex relaxed in her chair. "A period of isolation and self-reflection. A long time, perhaps years. You will struggle with yourself, alone. This will be followed by a new relationship, with a young man, younger even than you… a soldier, I think, or some other profession in defense - but it will be a complex courtship, with a lot of… _moving parts_. And here, with the Empress, we have some sort of ultimate acceptance, and abundance. There will be child, many children maybe."

Alex looked first at Sherry, and then at her brother. "What? It's a good life. Why the long faces?"

Sherry feigned a smile for her godmother, but she saw that Wesker did not.

* * *

The little party moved slowly to the dark parlor, all of them drowsy and well-fed. Wesker dropped his iPod in Alex's lap after she'd badgered him to _turn on some damn music_ , and he opened the great glass doors that went out to the atrium, letting the humid night air into the flat. Barefoot, he sauntered around his potted garden, stopping sometimes to examine the leaves of a perennial or a vegetable or an herb. Alex laid on her back, her legs draped over the arm of a comically long couch with one of her red heels half off. She scrolled through his catalogue, the blue light of the device on her china-white face. Sherry curled up in an overstuffed chair and watched them.

Alex chose something and Wesker's sound system clicked on, lighting up in an ornate old curio. "Suddenly I can't remember. How did we dance in Seventies?"

Wesker leaned on the doorframe and stroked the pale petals of a lily he'd picked. He smiled to himself. "Badly. We danced badly."

The Eagles' _Life In the Fast Lane_ poured into the room. Don Henley's voice sounded distant and eerie in the otherwise still apartment.

" _He was a hard-headed man, he was brutally handsome… and she was terminally pretty_ ," Alex sang along softly, winking at the end of the lyric for Sherry. She sat up and slipped off her pumps. "Do you remember," she said to Wesker as the song went into its second verse. "How we used to get very dressed up and sneak out of the dormitories, and how we'd drive up to the city in the middle of the night and go to the disco? Do you?"

Wesker chuckled, an embarrassed sound in the darkness. "I do, yes. Unfortunately."

"He was about your age then. He was so young, angel. And he could dance - he was _amazing_ ," Alex said to Sherry in a thrilling, secretive voice.

"God, stop," he mumbled, stifling his laughter.

Alex got up and walked to him across the hardwood floor in time to the music. He shook his head at her and dodged when she reached out to him. They laughed breathlessly, brother and sister in a game of cat and mouse; he held her at arm's length, and she twisted herself free, landing playful punches and pinches to his sides until he relented and spun her around in a slow circle. He brought her in then, a hand on her lower back, with the other holding hers. He led her in a dance and she let him.

" _He was too tired to make it… She was too tired to fight about it_ ," Alex sang to him, taunting.

Sherry smiled at them.

They finished out _Life In the Fast Lane_ and stood in place, waiting for the next song on the playlist. The opening snare drum of _Addicted to Love_ echoed in the great room.

"And then the Eighties… The drugs were so pure… Our hair was so big," she went on, glancing over her shoulder at Sherry. "He used to help me tease mine before we'd go out - I could never get the back right. How much Aquanet do you think the two of us went through?"

"Oh, we single-handedly put that hole in the ozone layer, no doubt," he said.

They danced closer to a side table; Alex picked her wine up without missing a beat. She took a deep drink, swallowing several times before setting it back down. She broke away from him and tousled her hair so that it fell to her shoulders in messy white waves. He watched her, his lips set in a permanently amused smile.

" _You like to think that you're immune to the stuff… Oh yeah… It's closer to the truth to say you can't get enough_ ," she purred, crawling up the front of his body. " _You know you're gonna have to face it, you're addicted to love._ "

He stilled her flirtatious hands in his own. He grinned. "You're such a slut, Ally."

She pushed him away and laughed, running a hand over her wild hair. "So were you, back then. We _all_ were. Everyone was so much more… alive." She turned to Sherry. "Your father did a ridiculous amount of cocaine, back in the Eighties. Your mother, goody-two-shoes that she was, never touched it. But your father —"

Wesker's smile dropped and he glared at her. "He got sober, once Sherry was conceived. And he _never_ went back."

Alex picked up her wine again. "Yes, yes. I remember. He really turned over a new leaf. He did." She conceded and smiled wickedly, finishing the wine in one gulp. She held the empty glass at eye-level, and seemed disappointed. "Get up, angel. Keep him warm while I replenish."

When Sherry didn't move from the chair, Alex hurried her to standing. She pulled reluctant Sherry along, across the parlor, and then gently pushed her very close to him. They stood nearly nose to nose, their bare toes touching and then retreating awkwardly. Sherry found she could barely breathe. She stared at his chest, watching it rise and fall.

 _Don't be odd._ She told herself, and closed her eyes. _Don't be bizarre._ _You have been this close to him before, a thousand times._

Haltingly, she brought her hands up and around the back of his neck. She had to rise up to meet him, feeling for the first time her breasts under her plain thin t-shirt, pressed against his body. His heat was indescribable.

His hands settled on the sensitive curve just about her hipbones; he held her delicately, as if his hot touch might set fire to her. In the humid room, she felt a blush spread over her face, and every hair on her scalp pricked to attention. He cleared his throat, the sound so close to her that she could feel the vibrations of it, and the next song started.

"Dance!" Alex ordered and disappeared into the kitchen, carrying the empty glass and laughing to herself.

 _Come to me, run to me, do and be done with me._ Annie Lennox's voice seemed to float up to the vaulted ceiling and hang there in the exposed ductwork, like a mist.

They swayed slowly and their thighs brushed together. The sensation, the proximity, forcing the secret place between her legs to bloom, and the unused muscles there fluttered almost painfully in anticipation.

 _Don't I exist for you, don't I still live for you? Everything I possess, given with tenderness, wrapped in a ribbon of glass._

"I'm sorry," he said softly.

She breathed and her mouth was incredibly wet. "For what?"

"I forget… that no one is like us," he whispered.

The word _us_ gave her pause. Her heart ached. "It's okay," she managed.

"It's not," he argued in her ear. "She's unbearable."

Sherry smiled and turned her face away.

 _Dying is easy - it's living that scares me to death… I could be so content hearing the sound of your breath._

"I thought it would be a pleasant visit… that you might need the company of someone else," he said. "Someone other than—"

"I don't," she replied quickly, quietly. "I don't need anyone else."

 _Slip me inside of your heart… Don't I belong to you, baby? Don't you know that nothing can tear us apart?_

Their eyes met in the dark of the room. He stopped and simply held her there while they looked at each other as though for the very first time.

 _Telling you that I loved you right from the start... But the more I want you the less I get - Ain't that just the way things are..._

Her pulse pounded in her ears at her unusual audacity, her own blood and his thunderous silence threatening to deafen her.

His lips parted.

 _Winter has frozen us… Let love take hold of us._

Alex returned to the parlor and waltzed in time to the song, alone and satisfied with her wine. "You're supposed to be dancing," she said, and then began to sing. " _Catch me and let me dive under… For I want to swim in the pools of your eyes_."

Wesker moved stiffly, suddenly awakened, and they danced out of sync with the music. Sherry could not feel her own legs; his hands were heavy and hard on her waist then. She looked down and her chest tightened with humiliation.

 _Don't you know it's cold… cold… cold._

The song faded and another ballad started.

"May I cut in?" Alex asked, smiling.

He looked at her from the corner of his eye. His jaw clenched, but he released Sherry. His fingertips lingered, hovering just over her hips, and then his touch was gone. He stepped back and Alex took his place, handing him her wine. He seemed frozen to the spot for a moment, watching them with such a haunted expression on his face, but then he faded away to the edge of the room, like a shadow.

Alex held Sherry's hand in her own, and pressed it between them. She pulled her in very close and began to slow dance.

"Happy birthday, angel," she said in a voice so low it was a caress. Her eyes, piercing and clear earlier in the evening, seemed hazy and luminous.

Somewhere in the flat, an old grandfather clock struck midnight.

Sherry cast nervous glances at Wesker as Alex spun her around, so slowly it was as if they were dancing underwater. He watched them from where he sat, his arms spread wide over the back of the couch, an ankle crossed over his knee, the half-full glass of wine in his hand.

"This song… makes me feel so romantic." Alex's slipped a few strands of Sherry's hair behind her ear, pausing to feel the tiny silver hoop in her cartilage between thumb and forefinger. She stared at her reverently in the moonlight that poured through the atrium doors. "You're stunning," she said, and the words were somehow comforting and terrifying.

Alex led her in a wide, dizzying circle to Eric Clapton's hypnotic voice.

"Have you ever been kissed, my love?" she asked, very close to her ear.

Sherry swallowed, breathing hard through her nose. She shook her head, just once. She looked guiltily over Alex's shoulder to Wesker. He stared at them, running his hand over his mouth.

"Would you like to be kissed?" Alex's heady gaze drifted to Sherry's lips, and back up to her eyes. Their fingers, intertwined, tightened at Alex's gentle insistence, and her forearm brushed against Sherry's turgid little nipple, over and over, maddeningly. Alex licked her own red lips and smiled as charmingly as she had all night.

Sherry's head hurt with the tension between; her skin seemed to be flayed, every nerve exposed to the careful ministrations. She felt she must be imagining it, that nothing was real, perhaps it was all a dream… an intoxicating, disorienting dream. She took deep, panting breaths in the darkness.

"Shhh… Don't fight…" Alex whispered, bringing her ever closer, close enough to press the entire lengths of their soft bodies together, close enough to be inside of her, close enough that Sherry felt every word Alex murmured on her own lips, in her own mouth. Everything hurt and everything spun wildly out of control, and still Alex's mesmerizing voice carried on, and Sherry felt she was bobbing up and down on a wave - a wave the shape of Alex's curves and thoughts and scent - painfully familiar and strange. "Shhh… Will you let me, angel? Will you give yourself to me?"

" _Enough._ "

The word split the heavy wet air like a knife. His hand, suddenly pressed to Alex's chest, pushed them apart, breaking the magic hold, and letting a cool rift settle between them.

Sherry shook her head, tried desperately to clear it of the fog. She blinked her poor tired eyes and rubbed them. They came into view then - brother and sister, at odds. Alex stared up at him, petulant and annoyed, her arms slowly coming to cross over her chest. She turned away from him, her shoulders square and defiant.

And Wesker… wore a mask of complete control. His stare never wavered from his sister's haughty face.

Sherry took a breath. "It's okay, it's —"

"Go to bed, Sherry," he ordered. His tone was unaffected, his shining red eyes still boring a hole through Alex.

"She didn't —" she started.

" _Go!_ " he yelled.

She took a step back, her legs nearly giving out in her terror of him… and she fled to the safety of her bedroom.

* * *

Late that night, Sherry laid in the safe house bed.

It was an old mattress, and the springs hurt her back. She'd long ago tried every position she could think of but found no particular placement of her body would ease the suffering. She stared at the popcorn-textured ceiling and tried to see shapes or faces or messages in it. Blue light from the street painted squares on the bare walls.

She was too exhausted to sleep.

She missed him, terribly, and she hated herself for the way her chest seemed caved in and gory at his absence.

The gravel driveway leading up the house crunched beneath the weight of a car.

Her heart stopped.

 _Perhaps… perhaps he had come for her._

She scrambled to standing on the bed, trying to pull herself up so that she could see over the window sill and into the yard. She jumped once, twice, in an effort to peer out.

At the front door, two agents greeted someone in muffled voices. Sherry listened intently for whatever might come next… but there were no screams, no sounds of struggle.

She felt tears welling up in her eyes. It wasn't _him_ … it wasn't him at all.

There was quiet conversation on the first floor among the dozen B.S.A.A. operatives. She could pick out Chris from the group, already accustomed to his sound.

There were foot steps on the wooden staircase.

She held her breath as the visitor drew near.

There was a single, sharp knock. "Sherry?" A woman.

She watched a shadow move beneath the door.

"Sherry?" came the voice again.

She cleared her throat. "Yeah," she replied weakly.

The door creaked open, just a crack. "You might not remember me," the woman continued. "But I drove here from Cologne to see you… I've been driving since this morning."

Sherry reached across the nightstand. She fumbled with the toggle switch on the ugly bedside lamp. The room was illuminated then. She winced at the awful yellow light. "Come in," she said, covering her eyes.

The door opened a bit more… and the woman stuck her head in, hesitant. Her red hair spilled like a mane about her shoulders. "Hey," she said gently.

Hot tears trailed steadily down Sherry's cheeks.


End file.
